1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical connector for optical wave guides and/or optical fibers. More particularly the present invention relates to a novel high speed optical data bus comprising an optical backplane and a plurality of novel optical connectors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When optoelectronic conductors are employed in various hardware devices such as connectors, terminal devices and converters, they usually employ Free Space Optical Interconnectors. Any time light is transmitted in free space, it should be transmitted as collimated light, otherwise the light is being diverged or converged. Light being diverged from a point source or converged to a point source has a fixed focal point which in most light conducting systems becomes critical for the efficient transfer of light in free space. It was known heretofore that adapters and connectors employing optical fibers could be designed to eliminate critical focus in systems designed as afocal interconnection systems.
Fiber optic and wave guide optical interconnections are classified in International Class GO2B 5/14 and 6/42 which generally corresponds to U.S. Class 85, Subclasses 53 to 94.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,521 shows and describes an afocal system which is incorporated into a terminal device. Light in a single strand optical fiber is mechanically positioned in an aperture of a diaphragm so that it is juxtaposed a micro sphere position on a light receiver or transmitting crystal which is electrically connectable to an electrical circuit. The "terminal device" comprises at least nine physical parts or elements which must be assembled using jigs and fixtures to complete the afocal system which is adapted to receive a single optical fiber.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,184 shows and describes a critical focus system in which a plurality of chips are interconnected by light fields. The chips to be interconnected are provided with optical ports for receiving or transmitting optical signals. Spacing between the ports is described as being 10 to 1,000 microns. Chips are placed on a rigid substrate with a positional accuracy of 7 to 20 microns on the substrate. Lenses are interposed between the ports on chips or at ports to be coupled to optical fibers or placed laterally (X,Y) to a positional accuracy of approximately plus or minus one-half micron. The coupling efficiency is described as being an average of 27% over an optical field width of 1,000 microns. Thus special jigs and fixtures as well as guides for lasers and detectors are employed to position and align both the lenses and the chips.
It would be desirable to provide an interconnection to interconnect the operating modules of a main frame computer via means of fiber optic cables. However, the complexity of the connectors available heretofore have introduced problems which mitigate against their use. Thus, it is the present practice in the main frame computer art to provide operational modules or printed circuit type cards provided with inconnecting pins which insert into a mother board to form a base computer system. Such mother boards have grown in complexity to require in excess of twenty separate layers comprising signal planes, insulating layers and ground planes. Attempts to provide miniature module cards and mother board have heretofore generated crosstalk at the higher frequencies, provided critical data paths whose lengths are mismatched and provided critical data paths having high attenuation and mismatched terminal impedance, all of which results in ringing, echoing and false data signals.
It would be highly desirable to provide a mainframe computing system with a miniaturized card set of modules which could be interconnected by an optical fiber mother-board which would completely eliminate the problems associated with laminated electrical connectors and conventional mother boards used in the mainframe computing systems.